Bands Blow Sweet Close To Jazz Festival

Bands Blow Sweet Close To Hartford Festival Of Jazz

August 27, 1991|By OWEN McNALLY; Courant Jazz Reviewer

If Monday night did indeed mark the swan song of the Community Renewal Team's 24-year-old Hartford Festival of Jazz, you'd never know it from the joyous Latin music that pulsated through Bushnell Park, delighting a crowd of nearly 2,000.

Trumpeter Ray Gonzalez and his excellent Latin jazz orchestra got the evening off properly with a zesty opening set.

Gonzalez played sweet, lovely passages on fluegelhorn and muted trumpet. And Thomas Chapin, a fine alto saxophonist and flutist, sat in with the Hartford-based band, adding an extra dash of flavoring to its spicy offerings.

Then Hilton Ruiz, the illustrious Latin jazz pianist, and his quintet flooded the park with savory music for the listening and dining pleasure of the crowd of aficionados, picnickers, partygoers and people just out to catch a cool breeze and some free jazz in the city park on a balmy summer's night.

The hot Latin jazz and cool breezes wafting through the park combined to make yet another splendid evening for the jazz series.

But between sets, festival director Paul Brown struck a somber note when he reminded the crowd that this happy concert might well mark the end of the festival.

Although rich in quality, the festival barely squeaks by from year to year on the thinnest, shabbiest of budgets.

Despite the festival's proven record as a cultural asset, death never seems remote. Brown's address to the crowd was yet another reminder that no matter how good it gets, the festival is always financially on the edge of extinction.

Brown, who was laid off several months ago by Community Renewal Team, said he might not be able to assemble a series next summer. Offstage, he said the nonprofit community agency hasn't shown any

interest in continuing the festival now that he is no longer employed by it.

On stage, he asked people to write to him in care of the agency, asking it to continue the festival.

Next summer would mark the festival's 25th, or silver, anniversary. But the festival's chronic lack of silver just might mean there won't be any 25th. Unless, of course, Brown, the impresario/miracle worker, can once again devise a way to save it.

Monday night's concert was a classic example of what the city will be missing if the series is permitted to die. Without the Hartford Festival of Jazz, downtown Hartford's cultural life -- such as it is -- would be sorely depleted.